Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Amit Chavda said, while speaking in the Gujarat Assembly on Saturday, that the state government hosted the “Namaste Trump” event despite issuing an official notification warning about the Covid-19 pandemic in January 2020.

“When the Covid-19 outbreak happened in China, World Health Organisation had warned all the countries. Government of India in turn warned the states. The office of Health Commissioner in Gujarat had issued a notification on January 22, 2020 clearly asking the hospitals and the medical staff to prepare and equip themselves to fight against Corona…. Despite all this we held the “Namaste Trump” event at end of February 2020. When people were to be sensitised and made aware, we held this event where thousands of people came from foreign countries without any medical checks, no quarantine measures were taken. People were brought from all corners of Gujarat in buses and people were gathered in the (Narendra Modi) stadium. The result was that cases roses rapidly,” Chavda said.

The notification issued by the state government in January 2020 had asked authorities to begin surveillance by checking the travel history of people in the state and inform the epidemic wing if any person with a history of travel to China is found in last 14 days.

Speaking on the discussions related to the speech of Governor Acharya Devvrat, Chavda said the state government tried to hide figures related to Covid and transferred officials who expressed fear about the prevailing conditions.

“When the death rate of Gujarat was the highest in the country, instead of taking actions, the government tried to hide figures,” he said.

“It was the Gujarat High Court which intervened and asked the government to reduce the prices of Covid tests, in private laboratories,” the Congress leader said.

Agri land for pvt varsities

Congress MLA Punja Vansh pointed out how agricultural land was given to private universities like Vadodara-based Parul University and Rajkot-based RK University despite objections from Agriculture Minister RC Faldu. Vansh said the land was meant for staring BSc Agriculture courses by the universities was given clearances by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani despite Faldu’s making file noting about the illegal process.

Faldu while speaking on the discussions said, “Both these universities are private agricultural universities. They need clearances from the state’s agriculture department if they want to start courses on agriculture… I made certain remarks in the files, regarding private universities owning land. Thereafter, the government considering the needs of the education sector made some changes as the government universities were not sufficient. In the third semester of the agricultural course, one student will need some land for practical experience. Where will the private universities get this land. So we took help of the revenue department.”